parrikar memorial

Book Review: The Mythmaking Around Parrikar’s Life Hid Many Compromises

A new biography of the Goan politician, who had a cult following but was obsessed with holding on to power, has something for both his admirers and disparagers.

Manohar Parrikar enjoyed something of a cult following within the BJP in Goa but also had his share of critics. These grew exponentially in his last term in power, when he failed to live up to his much-hyped promises. A recently released political biography of the former Goa chief minister, who also served as Union defence minister, has something for both his admirers and disparagers. But it fails to substantially analyse and contextualise the rise and legacy of a politician who was so hung up on power that he clung on as chief minister to his dying day at great cost to Goa and the democratic process of government.

“In 2005, he told me the feeling of losing power was as painful as someone trying to rip off one’s skin. He even said that he finally realized why Congress leaders would feel restless without power,” one of Parrikar’s confidants and RSS man Ratnakar Lele is quoted as saying. Whether the decision to not step down came from a profound sense of loyalty to the BJP – to ensure the party’s untrustworthy allies wouldn’t conspire to form an alternative with the Congress – or because of his abiding belief that only he had what it took to govern Goa, the authors fail to explore.

Sadguru Patil and Mayabhushan Nagvenkar
An Extraordinary Life: A Biography of Manohar Parrikar
Penguin (July 2020)

Written by Goa-based journalists Sadguru Patil and Mayabhushan Nagvenkar, An Extraordinary Life: A Biography of Manohar Parrikar (Penguin Random House India) released a little after a year since Parrikar died from pancreatic cancer aged 63, tracks the life and political trajectory of the BJP politician from his childhood in small-town Mapusa—where his father ran a grocery store—through his years at IIT Bombay, his political baptism via the RSS and his eventual rise to power. There’s even a chapter on his quirky food habits.

The authors say:

“Dedicating a chapter about food and other habits may appear to be slightly incongruous in a political biography of a former defence minister and a politician who went on to define an entire political era for Goa. But his maverick personality, marked with oddities, charm and human flaws, went a long way into the making of his aura, which along with his sharp political acumen, carried him far.” (Emphasis added)

They claim, “By virtue of rank, Parrikar became the state’s tallest politician ever, with his appointment as defence minister in 2014. Veteran Goan politicians like Ramakant Khalap of the MGP [Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party], Eduardo Faleiro from the Congress and BJP’s Shripad Naik have served as Union ministers of state, but none could pass the vertical barrier to become a full-fledged cabinet minister.”

Parrikar came into electoral politics in 1994 with the BJP’s debut in the state assembly. An early ambition to move to parliament was nixed with his 1996 defeat. The RSS’s astute and hard-nosed deal brokering with the MGP (which eventually emasculated the regional party to a has-been) helped the BJP and also Parrikar grow in Goa.

Even if unintended, the book does a harsh takedown of Parrikar in some passages: “His tenure in power, especially the later phases, was marked with some of the most brazen betrayals of promises and an administration that at best ranged from average to below par.” The sweeping assertions and liberal use of superlatives (the “extraordinary” in the title for instance) play into the BJP’s agenda of writing out the past to plug its new icons. (Invincible a pictorial tribute to Parrikar as “India’s most beloved Defence Minister”, was released by the Centre on his first death anniversary this March. The Goa government too has commissioned a journalist who was close to Parrikar to produce an official biography for a fee of Rs 10 lakh.)

As defence minister, Parrikar tried to insidiously erase Nehru’s role in liberating Goa by projecting only the armed forces, ignoring the many years of diplomacy between India, Portugal and the UN that preceded the 1961 action. With patience running out, Nehru defied the US to order military action which was launched on December 17 of 1961 and wrapped up in two days after Goa’s takeover.

“Although Parrikar insisted on returning to Goa for purely political and personal reasons, he would often raise the emotional, patriotic pitch with his trademark refrain that he returned to his home state after paying a debt to the Indian Armed Forces—by serving as the defence minister… ‘The Indian Army liberated the state. I think that was a debt that needed to be paid back,’” the book says, using a quote from 2018.

His successor, Pramod Sawant, Goa’s current chief minister, who was recently ticked off by governor Satya Pal Malik for his ‘botched handling’ of the coronavirus crisis, has sung a similar refrain blaming Nehru for “delaying” Goa’s annexation.

Quoting Lele again, the account claims as defence minister, Parrikar had differences with Arun Jaitley. “He never mentioned it publicly, but Parrikar often told me how Jaitley was delaying the resolution of the OROP (one rank, one pension) issue.” With Jaitley’s demise, there’s no way of sifting the chaff from the truth of these claims.

Seen through the narrow prism of family and the inner coterie of confidants and advisors (one of them a discredited former state advocate general), the biography offers an intimate account of the former chief minister’s personal life and a meandering one of his political journey. Missing, however, are the views of his critics and the few who dared stand up to him within the party. The former chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar and Union minister Shripad Naik, for instance, had openly rooted for Parrikar to step down more than six months before his passing away because of his debilitating health condition.

Laxmkant Parsekar. Photo: PTI

After an election victory in 2002, Parrikar was asked by a national magazine if he was an RSS man or a chief minister first. ‘Why can’t one be both?’ he responded. “I am a staunch RSS man and that’s why I’m not communal. What I have learnt from the RSS is to maintain justice. The RSS never taught me to be communal.” The question was perceptive, given Goa’s religious demographic composition and the initial aversion of the minorities to the saffron party.

If you’re looking for answers to Parrikar’s ambivalence on minorities and whether deep down, he did subscribe to the RSS view of a Hindu rashtra, you’re unlikely to find them in this book which deals with his RSS roots and his organising groups of karsevaks from Goa to Ayodhya (1990 and December 1992 when his mother went along) like they were taking a walk in the park.

In some elections, Parrikar went all out to polarise the vote, in others he desperately wooed the Catholics to breach the halfway mark, which the BJP managed for the first time in 2012. This was not as a result of his “social engineering skills” (another media created “urban legend”) alone, but a coalescing of a complex set of factors – an anti-Congress wave, a large infusion of funds (the casinos knew where to place their bets) and unprecedented media management that amplified the Congress’s warts and corruption. The sea of glum faces in the media section as the results flashed the BJP’s defeat in the next assembly election in 2017 said it all.

Parrikar “had promised to ban offshore casinos once in power…however, the Parrikar-led administration did not just allow much larger offshore casinos to replace the smaller casino vessels, but also did not move to appoint a regulatory mechanism like a Gaming Commissioner to ensure fair practices on the casino gaming floors,” the book says of his “legacy of U-turns” on casinos and mining. All this had been widely reported in the media.

Parrikar was indeed a leader of consequence in Goa. In the sea of faceless politicians that surrounded him within the BJP, he stood apart (the book calls him “the alpha” of the BJP). Driven by the singular ambition to make it to the top, his grassroots charisma and astute political leadership promoted the saffron party’s rise in Goa. A chapter on post-colonial politics would have given the book some depth and context. Where does his legacy stand for instance in contrast to the MGP’s golden age under Dayanand Bandodkar, or the chaotic years of Congress hegemony in Goa? Did the BJP bring any significant development in Goa (hundreds of government primary schools have shut down in recent years)? Just a recall of political developments of the last two decades is no substitute for critical analysis.

To those who’d written off the BJP in Goa after Parrikar, the saffron party’s proved it has not only survived but is thriving, one of the authors said in an online chat at the book’s launch in Panaji. The party has currently more Congressmen than those originally from the BJP in its legislature wing and a chief minister who can barely rule. The makings of several little rebellions, Congress style, are brewing within the Goa unit, one of them spurred by Parrikar’s son Utpal, who said people his father had brought into the party are being currently sidelined. Parrikar’s eventful political journey seems to be taking us right back to where it all began. A party looking more and more like the one it promised to replace.

Goa: Despite 1100% Spike in COVID-19 Cases, BJP Is Busy Raiding Its Former Ally

Breaking up the Goa Forward Party doesn’t really do much for the BJP, except to prove that the saffron party is cynical enough to play political hopscotch during a pandemic and an economic downturn.

On a day that Goa hit a new milestone with its first two COVID-19 deaths and recorded 1100% spike in cases, the BJP went on a political hunting raid trying to split its own former ally, the Goa Forward Party (GFP). Asked if the political grapevine had got it right, GFP president Vijai Sardessai told The Wire, “they are trying”.

The political moves being managed by the saffron party’s shadowy organising secretary Satish Dhond, said to have a direct line to union home minister Amit Shah, come against the backdrop of chief minister Pramod Sawant’s gross mishandling of the COVID-19 crisis and the state’s finances and provide a convenient distraction from issues that really matter.

A “green zone” till April 12 when it was COVID-free, Goa’s curve has ballooned dramatically this month, hitting 951 cases and two deaths (as on June 24), a spike of 1100%, the local O Heraldo reported. Six localities and villages across Goa now house hotspots, with the settlement at Mangor hill in Vasco leading the count with 283 cases.

Breaking up the GFP which has only three MLAs doesn’t really do much for the BJP in terms of numbers, except to prove that the saffron party has the muscle and the coffers to do it—and is cynical enough to play political hopscotch even during a challenging pandemic and economic downturn.

Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant with Goa speaker Rajesh Patnekar at Shiv Jayanti celebration earlier this year. Photo: Author provided

The BJP has already a bloated strength of 27 (in a House of 40), 10 of them acquired from the Congress and two from the MGP last year. The ruling party lost the 2017 election but still managed to scramble to power, poaching MLAs from other parties along the way. Last week, the Supreme Court issued notice to Goa speaker Rajesh Patnekar on a petition filed by the Congress Party. The speaker has kept the party’s disqualification petition against its MLAs in cold storage since August 8, 2019, the Congress said.

Sardessai, who played a pivotal role in the BJP’s return to power, has turned its biggest critic since being dropped from Sawant’s cabinet, calling his government “inefficient, non-transparent and having no administrative accountability”, accusations hard to dispute as the government lurches from crisis to crisis. The BJP’s moves to splinter the GFP comes days after the local party petitioned the state Lokayukta (notices have already been sent to the government in the matter) for an investigation into the diversion of a coronavirus relief fund meant for labourers to the pockets of BJP workers and supporters.

Vijai Sardessai. Photo: Facebook

Much of the Rs 13 crore Goa Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board Assistance Scheme-Covid-19 (set up end March to help workers tide over wage loss) had been siphoned off by BJP karyakartas, the GFP complaint alleges. Out to shoot down the messenger, labour minister Jennifer Monserrate told The Wire, “Don’t go by everything you hear from Goa Forward. Since when have they become so clean?”

She has bank details to prove the money (from a Rs. 5.6 crore fund, according to the government) had gone to the right beneficiaries, Monserrate claimed. Her statement, however, runs counter to the chief minister’s admission that he’d spotted the names of several sarpanchas who’d taken the Rs 6,000 dole meant for labourers (“What can I do if some sarpanch registers as a labourer?” – was his wry comment).

The Wire independently spoke to a random selection of people on the list. Among them four housewives (“I never leave the house, I have a sick father to look after,” one said), a “utility” worker who applied because he too was out of work, and even an employee of a major tyre factory who took the handout even though he still has a well-paid admin job. None, of course, are construction workers and all had been alerted to the scheme by their BJP panchas.

By its own admission, the Goa government is so broke (revenues slumped 80% making the liability difficult to handle, a senior official said) that it even diverted funds from the District Mineral Foundations to ride out the crunch. “They have no concept of the kind of financial crisis we’re in,” former deputy CM and MGP leader Sudin Dhavlikar told the local media Wednesday. The chief minister was selling state security bonds every now and then to just manage the government’s wage bill, he pointed out.

Also read: Red Flags Over Goa’s COVID-19 Testing as State Itches to Reopen Economy

Compelled to cut back on six crucial healthcare projects at the Goa Medical College because of the squeeze, the chief minister hasn’t for a moment taken his eyes off the construction of a memorial for a dead politician and the superfluous beach landscaping under the smart city project (both infrastructure projects are directly under him) where work continues apace even during the pandemic and economic meltdown.

“Only the government knows how the funds for the Manohar Parrikar Smriti Sthal will come,” a government official says. All he knows is that the Rs 10 crore project (being built by Univastu India Ltd on Miramar beach) has a deadline of March 2021, and work was fast-tracked soon as the 40-day lockdown lifted. Tonnes of concrete are being poured into the sandy beach for the structure’s foundation, even though Goa’s seen an intense start to the monsoon with flooding all around.

Miramar promenade project. Photo: Author provided

Bordering the Parrikar memorial, almost a kilometre of beach is being landscaped at the cost of Rs 13 crore with the construction of a gabion wall, a granite promenade and the random placement of gazebos under the guise of the smart city project, never mind that Goa has one of the worst internet connectivity systems in place. Launched in 2015, one of the prime objectives of the Centre’s Smart City Mission was to create an efficient urban infrastructure with high-speed internet, good public transport and uninterrupted water and power supply in 100 Indian cities.

In Panaji, the funds have been diverted to beautification projects of the chief minister’s choice, though Sawant has never lived in the city. Asked for a break-up of projects and the funds received and spent, Imagine Panaji Smart City Development Ltd said it would “take time”. The special purpose vehicle set up for the project’s execution has been often accused of a complete lack of transparency.

The beach beautification project under smart city. Photo: Author provided

It’s easy to dismiss the Goa chief minister as an incompetent, inexperienced, fumbling leader. At a recent press conference turning down the need for a short lockdown at a growing hotspot, he said “Goans have good immunity” to fight the infection. In another instance, he said coronavirus was just like the flu.

Also read: Goa: Backed by Local BJP MLAs, ‘Self-Lockdowns’ in Villages Draw Party Leadership’s Ire

The pandemic has also allowed the BJP government to brazenly subvert the system and use the police selectively against the opposition and activists. Recently, the Vasco police arrested Goa PCC vice president Sankalp Amonkar and a half dozen other Congress supporters for holding a press conference in which they pointed to the flaws in the government’s response to the pandemic. An FIR has also been registered by the crime branch against the former NCP MLA Micky Pacheco for his criticism of the government.

Last month seven activists were arrested for protesting the filling up of agricultural land for a new panchayat ghar in Taleigoa, Monserrate’s constituency. The panchayat, known to overlook violations by huge developers, runs an air-conditioned office, probably one of the poshest in Goa.

Devika Sequeira is an independent journalist based in Goa.

Petition Filed Against Construction of Parrikar Memorial on Goa’s Miramar Beach

The petitioner, Devika Sequeira, told The Wire that the city shoreline was a part the “ecological heritage” and that politicians were making a sudden claim on this “public heritage”.

New Delhi: A petition has been filed in the Bombay high court at Goa seeking to direct the government to stop construction of a memorial for former chief minister Manohar Parrikar on Miramar beach in Panaji.

Manohar Parrikar, a four-time chief minister from Goa and former Union defence minister, passed away on March 17, 2019, after a prolonged battle with pancreatic cancer and was accorded a state funeral the next day.

Parrikar was later posthumously awarded the Padma Bhushan in January 2020.

The petition, filed by journalist Devika Sequeira, has said that the public beach “cannot be mismanaged, misused or appropriated for constructing a memorial by causing harm and damage,” According to a TOI report, the petition also said, “The memorial will destroy the public beach in terms of the findings of the one-man committee headed by Nandkumar Kamat, constituted by Parrikar.”

The committee had been appointed by the state in 2001 following a proposal to privatise Miramar beach.

The petition has sought an immediate halt to the construction of the memorial until the committee’s findings and recommendations are considered. The petition has also sought protection for beaches from any construction, including memorials.

Also read: Goa Govt Corners Chunk of ‘No Development’ Beach for Rs 8.5-Crore ‘Shrine’ to Parrikar

Speaking to The Wire, Sequeira said that as a journalist, it would be a conflict of interest for her to write and report on the case henceforth. “But as a citizen and someone who has been born and lived in this city almost my entire life I feel very strongly about the government’s decision to build another memorial on Miramar beach,” she said.

Sequeira said that was compelled to file a case after nobody else came forward to challenge the matter in court. “Unfortunately, we live in the age of supine and self-serving politicians. Not one of them – not even the MLA of Panjim or the environment minister to whom I appealed several times – dared question such a unilateral decision,” she said.

Underscoring the public’s collective right over the beach, Sequeira said, “The city shoreline is a part of our ecological heritage, and all of a sudden politicians who have no attachment to it are making a claim on this public heritage”.

Sequeira’s lawyer Rohit Bras De Sa told The Wire that the matter would come up for admission after the relaxation of the coronavirus notification by the high court. “The state through the attorney general is on private notice and appeared before the court yesterday. The hearing was deferred for the aforementioned reason,” he said.

The foundation stone for Parrikar’s memorial, which is expected to cost close to Rs 7.8-crore, was laid on the former chief minister’s 64th birth anniversary on December 13.

Miramar beach is classified as CRZ III under the coastal regulation laws. Environmentalists say no construction is allowed in such zones up to 200 metres of the high tide line (HTL), which pretty much includes the whole stretch of beach.

Goa’s BJP-led government intends to commemorate Parrikar’s first death anniversary on Tuesday with a series of programmes that are on track despite advisories against ‘mass gatherings’ in view of the coronavirus outbreak.

Goa Govt Corners Chunk of ‘No Development’ Beach for Rs 8.5-Crore ‘Shrine’ to Parrikar

Parrikar himself had refrained from construction on the beach after a committee pronounced it protected.

Bent on fashioning its version of history and creating new saffron icons, the BJP is shaping a larger than life narrative of Manohar Parrikar through a memorial for the late Goa chief minister which is designed more like a shrine than a monument, complete with an underground meditation hall.

Holographs of the politician will be beamed on the walls and an enormous metal shingled portrait of his, facing the public road, will share space with his video clips and the occasional patriotic film.

All very well. Except that a large section of Panaji’s Miramar beach, a landmark in the cityscape and part of its urban vibe, has been boarded up to make way for the extravagant construction, even though the entire beach is in the ‘no development zone’.

Parrikar died of cancer while still in office on March 17 this year. He was cremated on the beach, in itself probably a violation of several other regulations.

The very same beach played host to Parrikar’s funeral as well. Photo: PTI

Miramar beach is classified as CRZ III under the coastal regulation laws. No construction is allowed in such zones up to 200 metres of the high tide line (HTL), which pretty much includes the whole stretch of beach, say environmentalists. But this hasn’t stopped Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant from brushing aside the law to advertise the foundation stone for the Parrikar Smriti Sthal will be laid on the beach on December 13, which coincides with Parrikar’s birthday.

Imagine for a moment a memorial to a Maharashtra politician taking away a portion of Chowpatty beach in south Mumbai.

According to documents accessed by The Wire, the state government gave itself “CRZ clearance” to hold the former chief minister’s funeral on the beach on the simplistic argument that the “area is beyond 100 metres of the high tide line and as such the location does not attract the provisions of the CRZ regulation”.

A funeral being a sensitive matter, no objections were raised.

But what were the last rites of a public figure in a public space is now being appropriated as a “sacred location” to immortalise the BJP leader in a larger than life avatar. Set on 1,255 square metres of sand, the monument will “celebrate the life and spirit” of the former defence minister “morphed around the sacred location where his last rites were performed”, the design proposal finalised by the state government (a copy of which is with The Wire) says.

A view of the Miramar Beach. Photo: Joegoauk Goa/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The Rs 8.5 crore museum-shrine, designed by UCJ Architecture and Environment, is being launched when the state government is practically broke, with mining unlikely to revive anytime soon and charter tourism hit by the Thomas Cook crisis. Goa’s borrowings are set to spike to Rs 22,500 crore by the end of the current financial year — three times its annual revenue growth—reported Prudent Media.

Also read: Why the Statue of Unity Hasn’t Quite Generated the Euphoria BJP Craved

A fusion of marble, glass (to represent “purity and integrity and transparency with which Shri Manohar Parrikar led his life”) and high technology — used in the interactive library dedicated solely to him — the memorial is intended to keep the memory of the BJP’s only significant leader in Goa burning bright for generations to come.

One can come up with names of several freedom fighters who spent years in jail for protesting the Portuguese regime. Most of them — Purshottam Kakodkar of the Congress, to name just one — are being written out of the political narrative and don’t get even a portrait in the lavish complex of the state’s legislative assembly.

The selection of the beach spot for the Parrikar shrine is significant as well. It stands adjacent to the samadhi built for Goa’s first chief minister Dayanand Bandodkar of the MGP, whose bahujan samaj legacy the BJP has been keen to appropriate. But the Bandodkar memorial came up in 1974, long before the CRZ laws were conceived.

Also read: Manohar Parrikar: A Legacy Marred by Political Compromises and U-Turns

Some BJP supporters point out that Parrikar, “a man of simple tastes”, would have spurned all the current hoopla over him himself. In 2001, in his first term as chief minister, the BJP leader had set up a one-man committee to look into public objections against his move to set up a management plan for the city beach which residents saw as a bid to privatise the beach. After a lengthy hearing, the Nandkumar Kamat committee concluded that the beach was classified as a “no development zone under CRZ III” and no construction was permitted.

“Miramar beach”, the report said, “cannot be equated with any other beach in Goa…People unequivocally consider Miramar beach as a special case, an unique beach, so far left intact as a valuable public asset, public commons unlike other beaches in Goa which are already congested and commercialised. People are vehemently opposed to any regulation or restriction on access to the beach but welcome notified free access points so as not to disturb the dune flora,” the report said, adding that “People would not support any constructions on the beachside or landscaping on sand dunes or restricting fishing activity or promoting any water sports activity”.

Parrikar accepted the report and dropped all plans to go ahead with the project. Sawant would do well to go back to that report.

Devika Sequeira is a freelance journalist based in Goa.